FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe stepping down | 29 Jan 2018 | FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has been attacked by President Donald Trump, stepped down Monday, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. McCabe will remain on the FBI payroll until he is eligible to retire with full benefits in mid-March, the sources said. One source said McCabe was exercising his retirement eligibility and characterized his decision as "stepping aside."

Republicans vote to release memo alleging FBI missteps while surveilling Trump campaign operative | 29 Jan 2018 | Brushing aside opposition from the Justice Department, Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted Monday to release a classified memo that purports to show improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation. The four-page memo has become a political flashpoint, with President Donald Trump and many Republicans pushing for its release and suggesting that some in the Justice Department and FBI have conspired against the president. The memo was written by Republicans on the committee, led by chairman Rep. Devin Nunes of California, a close Trump ally who has become a fierce critic of the FBI and the Justice Department.

'Deplorable' NYU Professor Sues University, Colleagues for Defamation --"This litigation will reveal some truly outrageous and shocking behavior." - Edward Paltzik, one of Michael Rectenwald's attorneys | 29 Jan 2018 | Liberal Studies professor [and CLG Founder] Michael Rectenwald, known for criticizing social justice and political correctness under the Twitter handle @antipcnyuprof, filed a defamation lawsuit against NYU and four of its professors on Jan. 12 in Manhattan Supreme Court. The professor, who proclaimed himself "deplorable," alleges in the lawsuit that fellow professors Jacqueline Bishop, Amber Frost, Carley Moore and Theresa Senft made false statements in a department-wide email exchange between May 8 and 12 of last year that have damaged his personal and professional life. He said in the lawsuit that NYU did not intervene when necessary to end the harmful accusations.

Fire extinguished at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant | 26 Jan 2018 | (San Luis Obispo County, CA) Firefighters were called out Thursday night to a reported fire at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. The call went out around 7:15 p.m. City and county units responded. They were said to be investigating a smell of smoke near the intake area. Several fire trucks could be seen at the gate to the power plant in Avila Beach. Smoke was reported to be visible by fire crews several miles away from the gate on PG&E property.

White House aide: Trump wants memo released for 'transparency' | 28 Jan 2018 | White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said Sunday that President Trump wants a classified memo that purports to show political bias within the FBI to be released. "We don’t know what’s in the memo. But I think the president generally is on the side of transparency," Short said on "Fox News Sunday." "I'm sure he’s very concerned about some of the appearances of conflict of interest at the top of the agency," Short said of Trump. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Trump called for the release of the memo, despite opposition from leaders at the Department of Justice and the FBI.

US-led coalition bombs Iraqi police in fatal friendly fire incident | 27 Jan 2018 | A number of Iraqi security forces have been killed in an airstrike carried out by US-led coalition forces near a US airbase, Iraqi officials say, adding that the victims were mistaken for militants. There have been conflicting report about the exact number of Iraqi fatalities in the airstrike. Reuters cited Iraqi officials who spoke of at least 11 dead, including 10 members of the Iraqi security forces and a local official. AFP, however, cited an anonymous provincial official who confirmed 8 casualties.

Kabul attack: Taliban kill 95 with ambulance bomb in Afghan capital | 27 Jan 2018 | A suicide bombing has killed at least 95 people and injured 158 others in the centre of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, officials say. Attackers drove an ambulance laden with explosives past a police checkpoint in a secure zone, home to government offices and foreign embassies. The target is believed to have been an interior ministry building, but many people were hit while walking by. The Taliban have said they carried out the attack, the deadliest for months.

Julian Assange asks UK court to drop his arrest warrant | 26 Jan 2018 | Lawyers for Julian Assange are asking a London court to withdraw a UK warrant for his arrest, saying it has "lost its purpose". The warrant was issued in 2012 after he allegedly breached bail conditions by seeking asylum in Ecuador's London embassy. He had been facing extradition to Sweden to answer sex assault claims but these have since been dropped. The Crown Prosecution Service says Mr Assange could walk free if he succeeds.

IOC 'banned best Russian athletes, doesn't want Russia to perform well' - skiing coach Markus Cramer | 26 Jan 2018 | The International Olympic Committee's decision to ban leading Russian athletes from the 2018 Winter Games without any proof might be an "unfair" attempt to degrade Russia, according to Markus Cramer, the Russian skiing team coach. "That decision was taken without any evidence by the IOC," Cramer told RT's video agency Ruptly, referring to the Olympic body's decision to exclude some leading Russian athletes. The athletes were on a special list previously filed to the IOC by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). On December 23, the IOC Invitation Review Panel excluded 111 of the 500 Russian athletes listed in the application without providing any reason for the decision. The banned athletes were deemed to have failed the panel's requirements.

North Korea calls for reunification as hockey teams unite ahead of joint effort at Winter Olympics | 25 Jan 2018 | A dozen North Korean ice hockey players crossed the heavily fortified border into South Korea on Thursday, as Pyongyang issued a rare call for unification. The female athletes, wearing red and white DPR Korea jackets, were en route to form a joint team with South Korean ice hockey players for the first time ahead of next month's Winter Olympics. Their arrival came as North Korea issued a statement calling for unification on the peninsula.

Oxford University gives women more time to pass exams | 22 Jan 2018 | Oxford University exam times were increased in a bid to improve the low scores of women, it has emerged. Students taking math and computer science examinations in the summer of 2017 were given an extra 15 minutes to complete their papers, after dons ruled that "female candidates might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure". There was no change to the length or difficulty of the questions.

DOJ office says it has found 'missing' text messages of FBI officials | 25 Jan 2018 | Months of 'missing' text messages between two FBI officials have been located, according a letter obtained by The Hill. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz told Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in a letter that the messages spanning from December 2016 to May 2017, previously thought missing due to a technological glitch affecting FBI phones, have been found. "The [Office of the Inspector General] has been investigating this matter, and, this week, succeeded in using forensic tools to recover text messages from FBI devices," the letter read. The messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have come under scrutiny primarily by GOP lawmakers who say that they are proof of political bias against President Trump in the Russia investigations and in the FBI overall.

More than 20 White House aides have been interviewed for Mueller probe, Trump attorney says | 24 Jan 2018 | More than 20 White House personnel have voluntarily given interviews to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russia’s actions during the 2016 election, Fox News has learned. A personal attorney for President Donald Trump also said the White House turned over more than 20,000 pages of records to investigators, calling the level of cooperation and transparency "unprecedented." According to a summary of records and witness interviews reviewed by Fox News, 17 campaign employees -- plus 11 others affiliated with the campaign -- also have spoken with Mueller's team or congressional committees.

Why Political Correctness Is Incorrect By Michael Rectenwald | 25 Jan 2018 | In adopting social-justice-based policies and mechanisms, North American colleges and universities are unwittingly drawing on totalitarian resources of enforcement. The ranks of administrators swell, and college tuitions increase, due largely to the outsized administrations devoted to special student needs. Most college administrations now include Bias Response Teams, tribunals that adjudicate behind closed doors reports of "microaggressions" and "bias infractions" at over 230 colleges and universities nationwide. Bias hotlines, safe spaces, trigger warnings and no-platforming or shutting down of speakers yield the right to curtail free expression and open inquiry to social justice advocates and social-justice-dominated college administrators.

Proposed law would turn Florida into a vaccine police state: 'Women's Cancer Prevention Act' would mandate mass injections with toxic HPV vaccines | 23 Jan 2018 | Following in the eugenics footsteps of California's SB 277, Florida lawmakers are now pushing a totalitarian medical police state law that would deny an education to children who aren't injected with the extremely toxic and risky HPV vaccine. SB 1551, being deceptively called the "Women's Cancer Prevention Act," mandates HPV vaccines in school-aged children, revoking medical choice rights from parents and invoking state-sponsored coercion to force children to be subjected to extremely risky medical interventions, even against the wishes of their parents. This is the ultimate medical tyranny on display as the state of Florida prepares to nullify parental rights and essentially "medically kidnap" children as required to make sure their bodies are penetrated with -- and invaded by -- whatever cocktail of viruses and damaging chemicals are manufactured into HPV vaccines (even the doctors and nurses administering these vaccines have no idea what they really contain).

Melted nuclear fuel seen inside second Fukushima reactor | 20 Jan 2018 | The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said Friday that a long telescopic probe successfully captured images of what is most likely melted fuel inside one of its three damaged reactors, providing limited but crucial information for its cleanup. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the fishing rod-like device carrying a camera went deep into the plant's Unit 2 primary containment vessel. The images indicated that at least part of the [radioactive] fuel had breached the core, falling to the vessel's floor, TEPCO spokesman Takahiro Kimoto said. Experts say they believe part of the fuel still remains inside the core of the Unit 2 reactor, while almost all of the nuclear fuel rods in Unit 1 and 3 melted and fell to the bottom of the primary containment chambers.

Trump says he would speak to Mueller under oath in Russia probe | 24 Jan 2018 | President Trump said Wednesday that he plans to speak with special counsel [Deep State dirt-bag] Robert Mueller, laying the groundwork for a high-stakes meeting that could shape the course of the Russia investigation. "I'm looking forward to it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked whether he would submit to questioning by Mueller's team. "I would do it under oath," he added. Trump has ridiculed the Russia investigation [sic] as a "witch hunt" and a "hoax," but the White House has sought to comply with the special counsel's requests in hopes that the investigation will wrap soon and clear the president of wrongdoing.

FBI's Strzok and Page spoke of 'secret society' after Trump election, lawmakers say | 24 Jan 2018 | Two top FBI officials under fire for exchanging anti-Trump text messages during the 2016 election spoke of a "secret society" the day after President Trump's victory, according to two lawmakers with knowledge of the messages. Peter Strzok -- a top counterintelligence official involved in both the Hillary Clinton email probe and FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe -- exchanged more than 50,000 messages with senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was romantically involved. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said Monday that among the messages the pair exchanged are references to a "secret society" within the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Woman with dementia and Alzheimer's froze to death after being outside her nursing home for eight hours before staff realized she was missing --Phyllis Campbell, 76, died January 7 outside the Pandora nursing home in Ohio | 24 Jan 2018 | Investigators say a 76-year-old woman spent roughly eight hours outside an Ohio nursing home while temperatures dipped below zero before she was found dead from hypothermia in early January. A report from the Ohio Department of Health says two nursing home aides told investigators they didn't do scheduled checks that night even though they were marked as completed. The state's report said four workers had been put on leave, but the facility's owner said Wednesday that the employees involved are no longer with the organization. A county prosecutor is looking into what happened.

Half of F-35 fleet grounded by tech problems - Pentagon report | 25 Jan 2018 | The most expensive weapons program in the world will not meet its testing schedule and of the Joint Strike Fighters already delivered only half can actually fly, according to a scathing new Pentagon report. "The operational suitability of the F-35 fleet remains at a level below service expectations and is dependent on workarounds that would not be acceptable in combat situations," said the report published on Tuesday by Robert Behler, the new director of operational testing and evaluation (DOTE) at the Department of Defense.

'It's corruption of the highest levels of the FBI': Agency informant 'has told Congress a secret society at the bureau held clandestine off-site meetings after Trump's election victory' --A Republican senator is claiming that an FBI informant told Congress of 'off-site meetings' held by a 'secret society' of agents at the bureau | 24 Jan 2018 | A Republican senator is claiming that an FBI informant told Congress that a 'secret society' formed by agents of the bureau held off-site meetings after Donald Trump's election. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, told Fox News Tuesday that the development is indicative of 'corruption of the highest levels of the FBI'. 'That secret society - we have an informant that's talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site,' Johnson said. 'There is so much smoke here.' 'A secret society?' Fox News asked Johnson. 'Secret meetings off-site of the Justice Department? And you have an informant saying that?' 'Correct,' Johnson said.

FBI agent sent 'jaw-dropping' text about no Russia collusion - senator | 23 Jan 2018 | The FBI agent who investigated the Trump-Russia collusion claim sent a "jaw-dropping" text message suggesting that there was nothing to it, according to a Wisconsin senator who chairs the Homeland Security Committee. Peter Strzok, formerly the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division, sent a text to his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa Page, on May 19, 2017 - just two days after the special counsel was appointed to investigate claims of President Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Strzok had led the investigation into Trump since July 2016, and had previously been involved in the probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there's no big there there," Strzok texted Page, according to Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who read out the message on Tuesday during an interview with WISN-Milwaukee radio host Jay Weber.

FBI Mueller probe's top agent Peter Strzok and his bureau lover Lisa Page texted each other about 'first meeting of the secret society' the day after Trump beat Clinton --Texts between the pair from December 14, 2017, to May 17, 2017, have 'gone missing' --Time frame covers the transition to the beginning of special counsel probe --One of the messages Congress did get talked about forming a 'secret society' the day after the election | 23 Jan 2018 | Two FBI officials who derided Donald Trump in text messages prior to the presidential election and suggested taking out an 'insurance policy' in case he won were revealed on Monday to have talked about forming a 'secret society' the day after the Republican politician beat Hillary Clinton. The conversation was part of a batch of communications between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page the Department of Justice provided last week to Congress, two members of Congress told Fox News. In an appearance on 'The Story with Martha MacCallum,' Rep. Trey Gowdy said, 'The day after the election, what they really didn't want to have happen, there is a text exchange between these two FBI agents, these supposed to be objective, fact-centric FBI agents saying, "Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society."

Donald Trump Has Signed a Bill Reopening the U.S. Government After Its Brief Shutdown | 22 Jan 2018 | The White House says President Donald Trump has signed a bill reopening the government, ending a 69-hour display of partisan dysfunction after Democrats reluctantly voted to temporarily pay for resumed operations. The shutdown took effect Saturday on the one-year anniversary of the president’s inauguration, but the White House maintains that Trump came out the winner in the GOP's standoff with Democrats. The White House argues Democrats "caved" after Trump refused to negotiate with them on immigration policy until the government reopened.

Man arrested, accused of threatening to kill CNN employees | 22 Jan 2018 | A Michigan man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot and kill CNN employees, WGCL-TV reported Monday. The FBI launched an investigation after the man, who is unnamed in the CBS report, reportedly called CNN 22 times about a week ago. "Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down," the man told a CNN operator, according to court documents obtained by WGCL-TV.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules state congressional map unconstitutional | 22 Jan 2018 | The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the state’s congressional map is the result of gerrymandering, to the point that it violates the state constitution. The court ordered that the state must draw a new congressional map ahead of the 2018 midterms, according to multiple reports. The decision is a major victory for Democrats, who argued the map had been gerrymandered to benefit Republicans. Republicans redrew the state's map in 2011.

Williams College Students Can Report Each Other for 'Making Comments on Social Media' About Religion or Politics | 16 Jan 2018 | Williams College is one of at least 100 campuses with a system in place for students to report each other for saying or doing something slightly offensive. These trivially disturbing occurrences are known as "bias incidents" -- and at Williams, virtually anything could qualify. According to the Massachusetts college's website, "name-calling and stereotyping" are examples of bias...Students shouldn't use slurs, or the word "gay" as an insult, or display "a sign that is color­-coded pink for girls and blue for boys," or imitate someone's "cultural norm or practice." And since religion and political affiliation are considered protected classes for the purposes of categorizing bias incidents, the following kinds of expression are also considered verboten: Making comments on social media about someone's disability, ethnicity, race, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliations/beliefs.

Professor: I was 'ambushed' by progressives for criticizing campus PC culture --'I denied that these self-appointed judges held any moral authority over me' | 22 Jan 2018 | In a recent interview, a professor at New York University [and CLG Founder] said that he was "ambushed" after publicly criticizing politically correct campus culture, stating that even his fellow communist friends "denounced" him for speaking out. "[A]fter the social-justice-infiltrated left showed me its gnarly fangs and drove me out," Michael Rectenwald recently toldFrontPage Mag, "I could no longer identify as a leftist." ...From the interview: Friends and acquaintances from other communities also turned on me with a vengeance, joining in the groupthink repudiation. After my appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, the Twitter attack was so fierce, vitriolic, and sustained that my associate Lori Price and I spent a whole night blocking and muting tweeters. But the worst banishment came from the NYU Liberal Studies community -- to which I had contributed a great deal, and of which I had striven for years to be a well-regarded member.

'Deplorable' Professor Fights Back Against Campus Totalitarians --An interview with the 'Anti-PC NYU Prof' | 22 Jan 2018 | "In the fall of 2016," New York University professor [and CLG Founder] Michael Rectenwald recently toldThe Daily Caller, "I was noting an increase of this social justice ideology on campuses, and it started to really alarm me. I saw it coming home to roost here at NYU, with the creation of the bias reporting hotline, and with the cancellation of the Milo Yiannopoulos talk because someone might walk past it and hear something which might 'trigger' them." Rectenwald, himself a leftist, created an initially anonymous Twitter account, @antipcnyuprof, to speak out against that ideology and the "absolutely anti-education and anti-intellectual" classroom indoctrination he was witnessing, as well as the collectivist surveillance state that the campus was becoming, as students were urged to report each other for the sin of committing microaggressions...Recently Rectenwald even filed a lawsuit against NYU and four of his colleagues for defamation. He consented to answering some questions for FrontPage Mag about his conflict with the NYU ideologues.